Donald Vaden says he was more than just his teacher's pet — he was her lover.

Boosted up a grade in school, plied with clothes, drugs, money, jewelry, and even a car, the Florida teen needed only fulfill his part of the bargain: Sex.

Now Vaden's teacher, 42-year-old Beth Friedman, could face up to 76 years in prison if she is convicted of conducting an 18-month long sexual relationship with her pupil.

Friedman is now on trial in a Broward County, Fla., courtroom on three counts of indecent assault, two counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Getting to Know Each Other

The alleged affair began in Friedman's seventh-grade study skills class at Silver Lakes Middle School in North Lauderdale, Fla.

Friedman ran her class with little discipline, according to Vaden, and allowed students to do as they pleased. Vaden took advantage of the anarchy and began sitting on Friedman's desk during class. One day, he struck up a conversation with the red-haired teacher, and asked for a ride home. She declined, but soon after, saw him walking along the street after school and changed her mind.

Vaden had had a difficult upbringing. With his parents divorced he lived off and on with his father, a roofer, and his mother, who worked selling roses and waitressing at local clubs. He was often in need of a ride home from school.

Friedman started ferrying Vaden to and from school regularly, and began taking him on trips to Grand Prix, the local video arcade, and the drive-in movie theater. She also spent hours talking with Vaden's mother, Gisel Vaden, and the two became friends. Friedman and Vaden began spending more and more of their leisure time together as well.

Getting Physical

As the relationship between the teen and his teacher burgeoned, it also became more intimate, says prosecutor Stacey Honowitz.

In the 1998 school year, when Vaden was an eighth-grader at Silver Lakes Middle School (thanks to Friedman, who had pulled for him to be advanced even though he flunked the seventh grade) the two had their first intimate moment, according to Vaden.

In his deposition, Vaden said that Friedman first kissed him during a trip from Busch Gardens in Friedman's Jeep Grand Cherokee. Vaden, who had recently received his driver's permit, was driving home with Friedman at his side and his 14-year-old brother, Darius, sleeping in the back of the car. At a red light, he said, Friedman stretched over and planted a kiss on his mouth. Later, he said in his deposition, she began fondling him as well.

But that was just the beginning, the prosecution claims.

According to the Honowitz, Friedman moved quickly from kissing Vaden to fondling him to having oral sex with the teen. Trysts at motel rooms, Friedman's mother's house and in the Cherokee continued their sexual relationship, but it took the offer of a 1979 Chevrolet Caprice worth $1,500 for Vaden to agree to have sex with Friedman.

"She was like, if I have sex with her, I'll give you a car," Vaden said in the deposition. "I thought it was a good deal. What would you think about that?"

Friedman bought Vaden the car and put it in the name of his mother's boyfriend, Charlie Ford, because Vaden was not yet 16. The two began having sex regularly, Vaden says.

After their first encounter, which took place in her bedroom, Friedman and Vaden allegedly became more adventurous, having sex "in the pool, in the pool bathroom, in the Cherokee, at the Swap Shop."

Vaden continued because, as he explained, he wasn't just after the car. "I thought it was cool. I tried to brag about it. Just because I got a car doesn't mean she's not going to give me stuff."

The Jackpot

Vaden's beat-up car was nothing next to Friedman's next offer: $25,000 in cash to impregnate her. It was to be her biggest move, and the one that would bring down their illicit relationship.

According to Vaden, Friedman told him she had been considering adoption, and that she would rather have his child. She said she wouldn't tell anyone that Vaden was the father, and would pay him the cash for his part.

To this point, Vaden had been able to fool his parents by hiding or making excuses for the gifts that Friedman had purchased for him. As a family friend, the teacher was saved a certain amount of suspicion. She had helped out the Vadens a great deal, and she even let Vaden's family — his mother, her boyfriend, and his brother — stay at her house for a period of time. But after they moved out and Donald Vaden kept staying with Friedman, Grisel Vaden became suspicious.

Then, in June 1999, Vaden, about to be flush with $25,000 in cash, told his mother about the deal to impregnate Friedman. In doing so, he confirmed her suspicions about Friedman, and she and Vaden's father went to the police.

The Prosecution's Case

The prosecution says that Friedman enticed the impressionable 14-year-with drugs, money, school help and sex. They say Vaden himself will detail the relationship, along with his brother, mother and a childhood friend who says he witnessed a sexual act between the two in Friedman's Jeep.

Besides the allegations of sexual abuse, some of the more serious charges involve drugs that Friedman allegedly obtained and used with Vaden. He said in his deposition that she would bankroll daily doses of marijuana and, later in the relationship, cocaine that they would share.

In his deposition, Darius Vaden said that he knew his brother was having sex with the teacher "by the way they acted ... She would always be all over him laughing."

Darius Vaden said that while the family was living at Friedman's, he overheard his brother discussing the relationship with a group of friends including Donald's then-girlfriend. "He F's her for whatever he wants," Darius Vaden said in his deposition.

He also said that, while the family lived with Friedman, he once slept in his brother's usual bed and was woken up in the middle of the night by the amorous woman. "She must have woke up or something and she started feeling on my leg. She thought I was Donny."

Brenda Del Valle, the mother of one of Vaden's friends, may testify that Friedman gave her son alcohol, the tranquilizer Xanax, and other drugs during a trip to Tampa with the teacher and Vaden.

The Defense's Case

The defense claims that Friedman was the victim of a scheming, law-breaking youngster. Friedman has denied having a sexual relationship with Vaden, and says that Vaden threatened to turn her in on trumped-up charges unless she continued to supply him with gifts and money.

In a letter Friedman wrote to Grisel Vaden, she denied having a relationship with her son, and said that Donald Vaden had been extorting cash from her.

"Donny beat me up... he abused and terrorized me throughout the course of an entire evening. He dialed 911 and threatened to have me arrested for molesting him. I have never slept with him. Grisel, ever since then when I've threatened not to do something for him, he threatens to have me arrested for molestation," Friedman wrote.

It is hard when you're friends with the mom and minor child. I am stuck in the middle of several friendships," she wrote later in the letter.

Vaden was, by his own admission, a precocious youth. And not only was he used to doing things before most people do them — drinking at 13, having sex at age 14, driving at 15 — he did many things no one is supposed to do, no matter what their age.

Among his many run-ins with the law, Vaden was arrested for possession of marijuana, and shoplifting, and even grand theft auto, and has admitted to doing cocaine, acid, ecstasy and a litany of prescription drugs.

He also wasn't naive about sex. Before Friedman, says Vaden, he had been with three girls his age.

Vaden admitted in his deposition to squeezing cash out of Friedman, whose family had money from a successful jewelry business and once drove around in a Rolls Royce, even on the day the investigation began. He wrote the teacher asking her to forgive his father for turning her in, and asked for money because "I have nowhere else to get it from."

She acquiesced, and gave Vaden $150.

Vaden, for his part, says he'd still be in the relationship if he could. "If it was up to me, I'd still be with Beth right now," he said in his deposition.

The trial, which is being broadcast by Court TV, begins Monday with jury selection.